


In a Little Glass Jar On My Desk

by Incy Little Spider (1ncylilspider)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sexual Content, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 11:42:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1ncylilspider/pseuds/Incy%20Little%20Spider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Visiting Spencer's flat is like stepping into a whole odd little world of its own...with it's conductor of the strange filling up the rooms with wonky elbows and crazy hair, that fits like puzzle pieces all glued down together with sticky messy paste. And he just loved it all. DerekxSpencer spiritual, fluffy slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Little Glass Jar On My Desk

_"What I think is this," she slurred slightly, pointing a ring-encrusted fingers at him. "Is that you keep him from spiralling up into the clouds forever..."_

_/_

Reid's flat was small and bursting with strange little discoveries and secrets. His videos, (because Spencer didn't seem to like modern technology, not even DVD's,) were arranged in alphabetical order and the Doctor Who, Star Trek and of all things, the 1989 Batman case looked the most worn, a cassette ready to go in his VHS player. There were more Tim Burton tapes then he would've first thought - and a few cheesy horror flicks as well. He would've never guessed that.

Surprisingly, he had more audio-books then actual books - he didn't know why, but he'd had a mental image of walls and ceilings lined with row after row of ancient books, and those little rolling ladders that you could whizz around in. He amused himself thinking of Spencer with his thick glasses sliding down his nose, perched in some crook or cranny like an owl, nose buried in some thick old tome, long fingers flicking through the crackling pages every half second.

"So what's with all the audio-tapes?" he asked on maybe the third visit into the younger man's lair, as he handed him a cracked mug of cocoa, squashing up next to him on the couch. Nothing in Spencer's tiny kitchen worked - you turned on a tap and something on the other side of the room broke off and if you tried to mend that, water started leaking from the ceiling and steam screamed out of eight separate rusty pipes and fixings until you panicked and kicked something and then you were really screwed because the whole room would fall apart around your ankles. He didn't know how he could stand it.

The messy-haired man shrugged a little as he took a sip from his old mug. This particular mug seemed to be his favorite - it was the most used anyway. It was coffee stained and had a old strange picture of a sun with a face, painted against a navy blue background, stars spotted around it as well. He used it nearly all of the time - his plastic Star Wars cup coming in at a close second with most used status.

"They help me get to sleep," he said simply as he circled the rim of the old cup, staring down into its murky contents. "I like being read to...I find it comforting."

The older man felt something shift in his chest, as their arms and shoulders pushed together. He would have to remember that. Although there probably weren't a great many books in languages he understood around here. He would have to dig around a bit to find one.

Or maybe just learn Ancient Hebrew.

* * *

He had toy dinosaurs in his bathroom sink. He kept a book of magic spells on his ironing board. He seemed to favor the color green for the bathroom - he had a green toothbrush and the walls were painted bright lime, the shower curtain a see-through citrus.

Apparently, the Korean family that lived downstairs gave him a present for his birthday every year. They gave him beads to hang from his living room doorway and brightly colored rugs for the floor and shawls and scarfs that he hung about, until the whole tiny flat felt musky, warm and close.

"The grandmother went through a hippy phase a few years back and look what she got me, look, it's actually hilarious..." he was grinning from ear to ear as he propped some round John Lennon glasses on, snapping a multi-colored headband into his messy hair. He looked so ridiculous, he couldn't help but laugh.

"And she got me a lava lamp too, it's so cool..."

He dug it out of the boxes in his cupboard and turned it on for him. They watched as it slowly warmed up, emitting a soft, orange glow around the room. And of course, he had to explain the science and history behind the lava lamp. Just because he was Spencer Reid.

"When she got out of the hippy phase, she had no-where to put her old records, so she gave them all to me and when the record shop down the street closed down approximately two years and twenty-eight days ago, the guy sold me heaps of them for cheap and..."

They played cracked vinyl records from the sixties and seventies and drank chamomile tea, (because Spencer had every flavor tea under the sun, peppermint, lavender, forest-berry-twist, lemon, coconut, cinnamon) and watched the lava lamp glow and talked about bullshit until his head felt hot and heavy. And he had never felt this calm and relaxed with another person in a damned long time and that was the first time he leaned in and brushed their lips together, and the dust clouded around his head and Spencer was dressed up like John Lennon and now they were drinking raspberry-pick-me-up tea and it was like a very, very weird dream that was somehow so slow and easy and strange like multi-coloured confetti blowing gently down a murky alley-way.

And he really wouldn't have thought the first kiss with Doctor Reid would've been when he was dressed up like goddamned John Lennon of all things, listening to Simon and Garfunkle on an old record player in a dusty flat that looked more like an op shop then anything else...

...but it was oddly perfect for all of it's strangeness and dreamy otherwordly aura, for a lack of a better word.

Which was kinda like Reid when you thought about it.

* * *

Spencer was like the crazy little conductor of the strange, floating from corner to corner, bouncing and bubbling with a thousand new things to say as the months flew by.

He wanted to uncover every secret to this place.

How he listened to Bach and Mozart and Beethoven on repeat.

How his childhood favorite video was Little Monsters, although he laughed at how bad it was nowadays.

How the only page in his one single cook book that he had to reread was the one for caramel fudge, which he still couldn't make without burning half the place down.

On the he-didn't-know-how-much-it-had-been visit, (he had stopped counting ages ago, all the visits seeming to blur together,) he got to find out more about the ins and outs of the younger man's bedroom. Spencer had to court each of his toys out of the room and put them on the couch before he'd allow the man into his bed because "it's weird if they're watching," and when he asked if he could just turn them to face the wall to save the trouble, he replied with, "I don't want them in the room while we're engaging in activities distinctly related to sexual intercourse," and yes those were his exact words, he didn't have to have an eidetic memory to remember that beauty. He'd laughed all the way into his bed and between the heavy, scratchy hand-woven blankets, that the old lady down the hall had made for him because she knew 'how cold you get sweetie-pie, and now you make sure you keep your gloves and coat on okay?'

And Spencer really did get cold, really quickly. Maybe because he was such a little slip of a guy, all flyaway hair and flapping knees and elbows.

Underneath the hot, sweaty sheets and blankets he whispered through the musky darkness;

"I've hated it ever since...ever since...the cabin in Georgia..." his voice hitched just slightly as they both slowly remembered that empty-eyed boy with pinpricked arms who had scared everyone so badly. They breathed the same wet, hot air as their limbs twined together.

"I just remember being so...cold..."

And he'd never, ever told anyone this before, but he just felt like he had too, had to tell him, had to let him know;

"Buford...he used to take me to this...cabin...out by the lake. I remembered it was always freezing out there, no-matter how many times he...sent me out to get fire-wood..."

But he couldn't tell him about the other thoughts that went with that sentence like pulsing poison, slithering in his ear,  _that was your chance to run. Why didn't you run? Why did you always go back?_

His long, thin hands curled around his blunter ones underneath the warm, itchy fabric. They pushed in closer together, like they wanted to sink into each other's skin.

"No cabin getaways for us then?"

"Nah..." he breathed softly into his hair. "I like it enough here."

He made a little muffled in response, before pressing his mouth into the crook of his neck and squeezing his hand so tight, he thought their skin would mesh together and conjoin.

* * *

He couldn't find a lot to complain about the flat, but the probably only blaring thing was how he sometimes forgot to dust when the place was in a desperate need of it. (Also the kid wouldn't wipe the sink down after he shaved, but that was a whole other story.)

"Look," he said fondly one late crimson afternoon. "We have a new friend."

He raised up on his toes towards the dusty webs in the dark corners of the bed-room. He let the spider creep slowly into his hand and Derek winced a little as he took it outside. He wasn't  _scared_  of spiders per say...he just didn't like them in general and he wasn't exactly keen on the idea of letting one crawl around his skin. He kept his apartment decently clean, so he didn't often run into them. Spencer had an affection for spiders though. He liked taking them outside in his hands and letting them crawl away into the shadows again.

"I find it interesting that spiders are such a common phobia, because we share our houses with them all through our lives and played in trees with them when we were kids and walk around their habitat and..."

He was padding around in his Batman boxers that Derek had got him a few weeks ago, hands fluttering against his chest as he ranted, Derek watching him fondly from the couch.

"Why do you like them?"

"Uh...my Mom read me Charlotte's Web when I was two...it was a break between the more heavy stuff."

The bigger man grinned up at him in disbelief.

"I think it's the general too many extra eyes and legs that put people off, baby boy."

"Actually it's a biological instinct that we find ourselves liking mammals more, because we're mammals too obviously, and we especially endear ourselves to small mammals with large eyes because it reminds us of human infants and that kicks in our protective inclinations, and people don't usually like spiders and bugs because they seem alien to us and if we were more arachnid or insect-like in our biology, we would probably find cats and dogs repulsive and spiders adorable and..."

He sauntered over and slid his arms around his middle, pushing his chin into his shoulder, rocking him a little. Spencer twitched his feet nervously as his words trailed off.

"What books did your mom read to you when you were little?" he asked squeakily after a long, still moment of swaying together silently. He had to pause for a moment to try and remember, sifting through the old threadbare folds of his memories - things got faded and faint before his father was taken from them and everything got way too painful and confused. He kept his childhood and adolescence in a barely touched, locked up corner of his mind.

"Uh...Where The Wild Things Are...The Hardy Boys, Treasure Island and all that..." Spencer made a little interested noise, taking the information and sending it through the search engine in his head, probably going through all the authors and every single one of the books they'd ever written along with every one of the book's publication date and re-issues.

"You know there was this old VHS of Maurice Sendak's books? When I was five, I played an alligator in the play of it..."

"Really Rosie," said Spencer immediately and he squeezed his hips a little tighter.

"Okay, smart-ass," he whispered fondly into his neck and Spencer twisted around nervously again.

"But you always say I have a cute butt," he replied, with a grin in his voice. Derek slid away again, smirking back, before giving him a sharp smack on the backside, nearly making him jump through the ceiling.

"You know it," he grinned, before slowly ambling off again. "And don't be a tease," he called over his shoulder

"Right," his voice cracked just a tad as he smoothed his hair over his forehead.

* * *

Sometimes when he thought he had discovered everything to the odd little dwelling where Spencer resided, he found that discovering things about Spencer's body was quite a pleasant past-time to partake in as well.

First you had to drag all those layers upon layers of clothes off which really was a task in on itself, (right after you evacuated his toys to the lounge-room, so they wouldn't be traumatized of course.)

And during winter, he insisted on keeping the blankets on because he didn't want to get cold, (even when he tried to convince him that they'd be warming up in a very shortly, although Spencer didn't really get dirty-talk and just frowned at him confusedly and asked him why he was stating the obvious,) and then on the really bad days he'd want to keep his socks on, even though the other man couldn't help but focus on why the hell were they always mismatched and if he had a single matching pair at all, when he really should be paying attention on other things, probably "copulation," as a certain genius would put it and that really was about as dirty as he was going to ever talk, no matter how much he tried to get him to say something more risque for once in his life.

Once they had to cut things off entirely, because the other man had nearly laughed himself out of the bed after Derek had got him to say how "bad I want you to give it to me." Then he had disappeared into the bathroom for half an hour and refused to come out because he was embarrassed over "stuffing this kind've thing up again."

They watched The Neverending Story and drunk dandelion tea with his toys all night instead.

"I do find it...kinda half-amusing, half-arousing when you start talking vulgarly during our sexual relations, but...I find it too unnatural to say myself..."

"Got it," he grinned over at the younger man, interlacing their fingers together tight. "I will never try to get you to speak like a porn-star again."

Spencer wrinkled his nose up in reply.

"Don't say 'porn-star' when we're watching The Neverending Story," he told him sternly. "It's weird."

The other man just laughed and brought him over to his side even closer and Spencer propped his head on the larger man's shoulder. Then he got teary-eyed during the part when the horse drowned in the Swamp of Sadness, before they got into a heated debate on how the hell a horse could get depressed in the first place.

"What, he started thinking about how he never had enough apples back at home?"

"He could've, depression actually does occur in animals, did you know that dogs can pick it up from their owners..."

"Clooney would never be depressed if I brought you home enough times."

And that made his cheeks go pink a little, which he loved.

He loved it when he flushed so hard, it went all the way down his neck and if you peeled all his buttony vests and shirts and undershirts off, how it glowed down his chest as well. It didn't take much. He still got a little nervy about sex and affection in general.

"This girl called Stacey Hayes who wasn't very popular because she suffered from halitosis and severe acne was coerced into taking my virginity on a dare and there were these more popular people laughing outside the door and all the lights were off and it was really quite terrible because as I said, her breath was really...well, it  _reeked_ y'know...and...and I think I prematurely ejaculated out of sheer terror and...and then the first time someone tried to take me to a bar and another male showed sexual interest in me, I kinda had a crying fit when he tried to...you know...put it in and stuff...and then I showed him my magic tricks all night to try and make up for it and it was a bit awkward, because he didn't really want to see my magic tricks, he wanted sexual gratification and then he told me to leave cause he could find another twink somewhere else and then I had to look up what twink meant and apparently it's slang for a young, gay effeminate man which I don't really identify as being, and the name was probably derived from the snack-food Twinkie, although I don't exactly understand what a sponge-cake has to do with homosexuals, and then I stopped going to bars altogether and then...

He frowned when the other man slowly started to laugh.

"Okay...okay, I get it...I think some of my terrible sex encounters trump yours though, baby boy. Did I tell you about the girl who didn't know her crazy ex-boyfriend was hiding under the bed the whole time?"

"What the hell?"

"I know...but he didn't think it through very well, I got a bit...vigorous at one point and apparently broke his nose, so was running around with blood spurting down his face yelling about how he was going to sue me for assault...but he shut up pretty quick when..."

"You gave him your scary Derek Morgan look..."

"Nah I think he realized I had more muscle definition then he first thought when hiding under the bed like the boogeyman and wisely retreated."

That made him laugh for nearly twenty straight minutes, until he accidentally poured hot tea all over his lap.

When he "helped" him get out of his pants in his room and they started touching a bit more insistently, the younger man suddenly slipped onto the floor to peek for a long moment under the bed, before he climbed back into the larger man's arms again. Derek couldn't hold back the laughter.

"Next thing you know, I'll be checking the closet for unsubs..."

"What you don't do that already?"

He had a fetish for the other man's muscles and tattoos and black t-shirts and in that exact order thank you very much, he'd found a dot-pointed list under his pillow. Once he came back to his flat after being with Clooney all night at the vet (he'd been bitten on the leg by a spider,) to find the other man curled up on the bed, one of the black shirts pressed to his face and he looked up when he walked in, like a deer caught in the headlights, slowly flushing scarlet and he'd walked over and slid over him, kissing him until his lips were swollen and neither of them could breathe anymore.

He liked to push his thin fingers into his biceps, feeling how big they were, how the firm flesh was completely hard and unyielding before he started lapping his tongue over the tattoos on his arms, as if he was fascinated by how the texture of the ink was different to his skin and if the other man moved just enough, he could feel how excited he was growing against him and that's when he'd smile his slow, white grin and whisper about what a curious little kitten he was and Spencer would shudder through his entire body and...

And he loved how when he had him on the bed, his fingers would move up and down his abs obsessively and he had to resist the urge to flex them like some kind've douchebag and then he'd stutter about "how this explains you getting up so early just to run and punch bags and do push-ups and stuff," and when Spencer had joined him on a run once, Derek had to stop and laugh to himself, because he ran so primly with his hands clutched nervously in front of himself, like he did at work and was trying to find someone to spout his newly found discoveries to and so he stopped going on runs with him so much and let's not even get started on the morning exercises...he'd nearly broken his wrist on the punching bag and smacked his head against the wall when he'd fallen off the chin-up bar.

And he really needed to stop getting so distracted by all of this.

But he found a lot of things distracting...like how Spencer wriggled his feet when they were having sex and then how long his toes were and the elegant bony curve of his ankle and how Spencer loved it when the older man propped his foot in his lap and stroked and stroked until his eyes fell shut and his breath got all ragged.

And then he was thinking about how much he had a thing for the younger man's thighs, how they were slim just like the rest of him, but had just a little extra padding to make them all soft and springy and he always teased him about how 'this is where all that cake and candy goes, doesn't it?' and how he could just live between those trembling thighs forever and die a happy man as he prodded and squished and pinched that lovely light layer of fat until he started whimpering uncontrollably beneath him.

He would think about how much he wanted to show him...give to him...how much he loved making his head fall back and his toes curl and his breath leave him all at once, make him shake and tremble and squirm.

There was this one time when Spencer was wearing his glasses and he'd bent him down on his hands and knees and slid tight and hard inside of him and he was panting through his red open mouth and his glasses fogged up and his hair fell across his eyes and it was so gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous...

And even if half the time, he just wanted to lie in bed and cuddle and touch, he didn't mind because sometimes he thought he could play with Spencer all day, find the spots that made him moan in the dark rich voice that only Derek was allowed to hear, only he ever heard, and he felt like...like it was such a privilege that he was even allowed to see that side of him that he hid away from the world. Like each time he slid beneath his sheets, he was seeing something rare and special...

Other times when he wasn't feeling all mushy and sentimental, he thought about how playing with Spencer was sometimes like playing a game of Operation. Some spots gave out very, very nice reactions but then others...it was like the big red buzzer blared out and everything shut down. You had to tread carefully...very carefully.

The first time he'd slid a heavy hand between his legs, Spencer had let out a half-strangled noise and slammed his knees together, trapping the man's hand between his thighs. He'd had to stroke his belly soothingly until he was able to pry his hand out again. It reminded him of that documentary he'd seen on what were they...? Fainting goats - you scared one of those things and they'd just freeze up and fall over. And then he had to stop himself from laughing because the image of Spencer freezing up and falling onto his side was way too ridiculous. Back then he hadn't known that Spencer's thighs should be added to the list as one of the great wonders of the world. Probably above Niagra Falls...below Mount Everest just by the tiniest bit...Mount Everest was pretty damned impressive. Spencer's thighs at Mount Everest? Reality as he knew it would implode in on itself and everything would cease to be.

Where was he again?

There was this one part of his hipbone that was a major danger-zone. It was kinda around by his left leg and when he pushed his thumb into the click-clacking bones, there was a loud yelp from above him and he'd ended up being accidently kicked in the teeth.

That one part of his hipbone: Very bad.

But then there was that other part of his hipbone, near his crotch, near that lovely light smattering of downy hair that he just loved to stroke and that made the tiniest of sighs pass his lips and his eyes fall shut, head falling back against the pillow, almost melting into the mattress like butter.

That other part of his hipbone, near his crotch: Very very good.

Nipples were another one of the bad areas...he got all jumpy and nervous and he couldn't forget that time he'd twisted around so badly, he'd accidentally smacked the larger man across the face, because he'd stroked those red pebbling nubs for too long and that one time he tried to stroke the pad of his finger down over his eyelids, he'd nearly jumped a meter out of the bed...

Eyelids: bad. Nipples: big red blaring siren.

Now feet, as was already established: good, very, very good, it made sensual lighting fall from the ceiling and Barry White play and was pretty much a double tick in the book of what spots to touch Spencer to make him happy and stop Derek from visiting the emergency room with a broken nose.

The crook of his neck and his collar-bone...half and half. It made his shoulders curl up a little and then he would start laughing and twisting around. When he sent a feather-light finger up the long creamy expanse of his neck, he let out that long low moan that made everything seem too hot and heavy and all the oxygen seemed to be leave the room all at once.

Those amazing pink lips of his...yes, yes, tick, tick, tick. What about his wrist and his long flexing fingers? Yes, yes, yes...

There was nothing more wonderful then watching those thin, slim fingers curl and uncurl against his chest and sometimes he asked the younger man very gently to touch himself, just so he could watch those soft, gorgeous hands slide down and start pressing rhythmically between his legs, before he cried out and the thick liquid connected his fingers all together in hot, sticky strings.

His tongue and his eyes and his curved nails and the silky skin of his cock which would bob against his smooth belly and he'd get all nervous at first and push his head into the pillow and try to cross his legs so he could hide and the backs of his knobby knees which were ticklish and his ass, how could he forget his ass, it fitted perfectly into his palms, he shook like a leaf when Derek grabbed at it, pushing his fingers into the quivering flesh, and he should feel bad about when during the next morning, he'd walk around looking for his pants, and there'd be purple finger-marks against his white, white skin and...

And he had the most prettiest little...tight little...tight pink hole that he loved to play with...he'd have those long legs hooked around his hips, stroking his fingers against that gorgeous, clenching hole and Spencer always lost the ability to breathe when he teased it for too long and he could come all over his gorgeous stomach just doing that by itself.

One day he wouldn't be so shy about the other man touching and loving him, but right now, they just had to take little steps through it all. Which he was fine with, because he felt like they were discovering what parts of him made him keen in pleasure and beg for more together.

One time he'd made the fatal error of switching off the bedside lamp when they were done, flopping down beside him and pressing in against his back, curling his thicker arms around his waist. There had been an instant stiff tense silence and he felt every one of the younger man's muscles coil up uncomfortably in the sex-scented darkness. Then he clambered over Derek's body and flicked the lamp on without a word, falling back down again, pushing his fingers into his mouth as the larger man tightened his grip around him, not needing to speak.

On the rare occasion Spencer woke up before him, (he slept like a rock that had been given anesthesia,) he nearly always found him softly stroking their skin, pressing the forearms together like he was examining the differences. Spencer was all long and slim and he was all big and solid and his arms were thin pressed against his thicker, muscular ones and his skin always looked so pale against his dark rippling flesh and his own fingers were blunt and calloused and his nails were short against his long, long hands that were so soft and maybe that's why he loved lacing them together, to feel that fascinating contrast.

* * *

"I like your apartment," he said once, bouncing around the dusty carpets in his old faded pajama pants and one of the other man's black shirts (his most worn shirt around the house was the Dalek one that was a size too small and Derek liked it very much, because it always showed a little white stripe of his stomach,) and his pajamas were getting too old as well and he had to pull them up every two seconds because they'd slide down his sharp hipbones and he was getting distracted again, wasn't he?

"Huh?" he said as he clattered around, knocking things over, before he collapsed onto the couch beside him. He had this awesome Einstein shirt as well that was always getting lost in his cupboard and boxes and focus Derek, focus.

"Your apartment is cool," he grinned up at him, his floppy hair falling across of his face. "It's like it's out of James Bond or a spy movie..."

He didn't take Spencer to his apartment a lot, even though Clooney warmed up to him by the second visit and he loved to slide around the shiny tiles of his kitchen in his socks. Derek knew it was swish and swanky...but sometimes he felt...like he didn't want anyone peeling it apart and discovering things he'd rather keep secret. He didn't like keeping too many personal objects hanging around - he had a few pictures of him and his mom and sisters but those were the only real things out on display.

If you dug around though, you found little bits and pieces carefully hidden away from prying eyes. The collection of doggie toys under the bathroom sink and the dog treats stuffed into the kitchen cupboard. A stack of fitness magazines and shiny DVD's kept in firmly closed cupboards around the lounge area. In his bedroom you'd find a single stripy sock in his wardrobe that he still hadn't given back after a visit from the good Doctor ages ago. One of his drawers was full of knick-knacks that Penelope had bought him over the years, pink stringy plastic things that glowed different colors if you squeezed them and fluffy pens and cheap toys and another drawer held his books, some on fitness again, others he talked about enthusiastically with Emily during boring days at the office.

In the bottom drawer, there were letters from the kids who reminded him too much of himself an entire life-time ago, who he couldn't help but reach out to and a stack of photos, tied together with an elastic band, and the most battered one was the one of the team when they'd gone to an amusement park on their break and Hotch had brought Jack and JJ was still swollen and pregnant and Emily and Derek had gone on all the scariest rides to try and prove who was tougher and Rossi had tanned everywhere but around his eyes where he'd been wearing his sunglasses. Spencer and Penelope got sick on fairy floss and soda and Rossi had said something to Hotch about who were the real kids here, Jack or the rest of the team as Emily laughed at Spencer's blue-stained tongue.

To the untrained eye, his apartment was sleek and shiny, almost remote, but there was too much stuff that showed a side of himself he kept carefully hidden away just lurking beyond the surface. He didn't want anyone to see that.

"I have so much useless stuff, just hanging around," Spencer was saying, kicking his feet in the air. "This flat looks like a bomb went off in it..."

"I like it," he grinned, rubbing his hand up and down his side, before pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. Spencer had this faint cinnamony, soapy smell mixed with a scent like an old library or second-hand clothes store. It was a bit of a weird smell, but he'd always found it strangely intoxicating.

"It's like this place is in a whole different world or plane of existence of it's own."

"That's very poetic," he giggled a little back, squirming in close. "I bet you've been stealing my books."

He pulled a mock-hurt face as the younger man nuzzled his face into the crook of his neck.

"Why would I do that? And why wouldn't I have poetry racing around my mind, ready just for you?"

"I dunno," he tittered harder, burrowing in closer and closer. "You  _are_  very romantic..."

"Really?" he teased. He put a hand on the warm cotton of his shirt, watching it ride up his slim, curved back. " _Your_  very squirmy then, aren't you?"

And he sent his fingers over his ticklish spots until he was a mad mess of thrashing laughter beneath him, pushing his nose into his hair so he could breathe that smell in again and again until it filled up his head with strange musty warmth.

* * *

_I don't take people here,_  e _ver_ , he wanted to say those words, but it kept on sounding weird in his head and he didn't want to ruin the moment.

"That's incredible," Spencer was proclaiming, beaming down at the menu from across the table. "Dude, they have alligator pie here! Alligator pie, what the heck? That's  _insane_."

"You've never had alligator pie before?" he smirked back, the other man's amazement proving infectious. Spencer burst into flabbergasted laughter.

"No! Why would I have alligator pie? It's incredibly amazingly  _weird_ ," he flipped through the laminated pages and started laughing even harder.

"What is it now, you little hyena?" he had no idea someone could gain so much amusement from a restaurant menu.

"I'm not that little, I'm like...half an inch taller then you..."

"That's only because you have hair, smart-guy."

Spencer's grin grew even wider.

"So if you grew an afro, you'd be taller then me?"

The other man rolled his eyes a little, although he couldn't quite wipe the smile from his face.

"I had the most insane afro when I was a kid, like you wouldn't believe..."

He was starting to suspect that the younger man had been slipped some happy gas on the trip over.

"That's so cool!" he giggled madly. "When I was a kid I used to have this flippy, girly hair..."

"Like the hair you have now?" Derek teased him and he pulled a face at him back.

"I do not have girly hair," he said in mock-outrage. "The waitress said I look like Johnny Depp!"

"That's made your entire week hasn't it?"

"Of course it did! Edward Scissorhands was brilliant!"

He pointed madly at the menu as Derek gave his head a little bemused shake.

"Look they've got soda from Japan!  _Japan_ dude! Is that the most insane thing you've ever seen or what?"

Derek burst out laughing as their waitress tottered over. Spencer ordered alligator pie and Japanese soda immediately.

He'd gone to this little restaurant a lot by himself in the past - it was a dusky little place hidden down a few alleyways, that he had come across by accident. The girls who ran the place were a cheerful, bubbly lot and he flirted casually with them (although Spencer would say he flirted casually with everyone,) and they all looked vaguely surprised when he wandered in with Spencer skipping in beside him.

"So this is the Reid you're always going on about?" Annabella, a short, bosomy woman with huge waves of black hair teased him, as he moved through the small bundle of habitués to get some more napkins from the counter.

"Never you mind," he grinned back and she gave him a little smack on the shoulder.

"Keep an eye on him. The girls all think he's a cutie."

He took a handful of napkins, smacking her back.

"You have no idea, doll-face," and she laughed out loud as he wandered back to his seat.

He'd ordered tortellini and they compared it to Rossi's old recipe, coming to the conclusion that he did it better just be the slightest bit. They'd tell him the restaurant did it way better, just to piss him off.

Spencer spent about twenty minutes trying to open his soda bottle. You had to pop it open with some stopper and marble apparatus that he couldn't quite get his head around, until Derek took it and tried to open it for him. Finally they gave up and called one of the waitresses over to put them out of their misery.

"If it turns out tasting like crap after all of that trouble, I'm going to flip a table, I swear to god..." he said as Spencer took a wary sip. He stared down at the bottle as if he was testing a fine wine. He even swirled the liquid around a little before he shrugged his skinny shoulders dismissively.

"It just tastes like any other soda," he concluded and Derek sighed in mock-frustration, throwing his hands up.

"Why can't you just say it tastes like the elixir of the gods to keep your man happy?"

His cheeks went red slightly as he grinned over the table at him.

"This tastes truly and divinely super-human in every singular possible way known to man and all the heavens and hells below and above us combined," he said and Derek ran his foot over his ankle beneath the table, making him jerk a little in surprise, nearly dropping the bottle onto the floor.

"You know your way to my heart, baby," he grinned and his cheeks went even pinker. He slid the bottle across the table and Derek squinted his eyes at the label, before he took a sip of it. He squished up his face.

"It does taste like normal soda," he said, a tad disapprovingly. "Just with a weird-ass way of opening it."

"Ah well," Spencer beamed back. "We shall make up this disappointment with dessert! Excellent, brilliant dessert!"

He looked down suddenly, as if hit by a spark of inspiration.

"What is it?" the other man demanded immediately, sliding his foot a little more insistently up his ankle. Spencer shot him a sly smile.

"Nothing," he said and squeaked when Derek's foot pushed between his legs. "And molesting me in public isn't going to get you anywhere, y'know."

"Really?" he pressed up even harder and the younger man nearly sunk down into his chair, flushing a deep scarlet.

One of the waitresses, (Sammie with the bleached cropped hair and snake-bites, who chewed gum all the time) came over, wiping her hands on her apron, sending the man a quick wink.

"So you guys thinking about desert?" she asked, chewing vigorously. Derek took his leg away, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Apparently he's got a surprise for me, so definitely yes, sweetheart," he grinned up at her and Spencer glowed red, sinking down even further.

"As long as I don't have to clean up this surprise, I'll get you anything," she said back and sent the younger man a sneaky wink. He smiled a little nervously at her.

"Um...I'll have vanilla ice-cream and a glass of coke please," he said and she smacked her gum, smiling wide.

"Sure thing, hunny," she chirped, turning to the other man. "And I'm guessing with you...the fruit platter again?"

"You read my mind," he said, flashing his pearly whites and she grinned, before bouncing off again. He glanced over at where the younger man was still shining like a beacon, looking like he wanted to climb under the table and not come out again.

"Hey," he told him gently. "Everyone's cool here. I wouldn't bring you to a place where they weren't."

"I know," he replied and straightened up a bit. "I'm being stupid."

Derek thought he knew what he was getting nervy about, but he didn't want to bring it up and make the younger man feel even more self-conscious.

He got excited all over again when he got his hands on the coke and ice-cream. Derek knew what he was going to do with it, but played along anyway.

"Sit back and be amazed," he instructed him and Derek obediently complied. Spencer took a few sips of his coke and then he got his little bowl of ice-cream and spooned it all inside the glass.

Immediately, a thick eruption of creamy fizz came hissing up over the rim of the cup like a volcano and Spencer gave a half-shriek of panic and then started cackling, pushing his hand over the top, his palm getting soaked in the sticky mess. It bubbled between his fingers and came surging down the sides in thick creamy torrents.

"Sammie's gonna be  _pissed_  with you," Derek exploded with laughter as the coke dribbled onto the table in a huge wet puddle. "Now what kind've scientific reaction was that exactly, Doctor Reid?"

"Magic," he giggled back, eyes full of mischief as he pressed his mouth around the rim of the cup to keep it from bubbling over even more. "It's all a hundred per cent magic."

"I'm betting I could get it out of you if I really wanted."

"You can try," Spencer giggled, licking the foam from around his lips. He grabbed their napkins, spreading them around the table so they could soak up the mess. "Anyway, I put in too much ice-cream, normally it only has a small reaction rather then a huge ginormous lava explosion. You know what they call ice cream floats in Australia?"

"What?" Derek asked and the younger man grinned like a Cheshire Cat.

"An Ice-cream Spider," he replied before bursting into giggles again. The other man shook his head incredously.

"The perfect dessert for you then?"

"Most definitely," he beamed at him from ear to ear.

He reached over to swipe a smear of ice-cream from the corner of his mouth and stole a quick, short kiss from his sticky lips.

"You will not kill me with your cuteness, no matter how hard you try," he said warningly, voice rumbling deep inside his chest.

"That's just what you think," he grinned cheekily back at him.

* * *

"You think we don't know?" Garcia laughed down the phone, probably on the couch in a big fluffy pink dressing gown. "Have you seen how antsy he gets when you tackle one of the creepazoids with your big sexy Derek Morgan muscles or get all aggro with them in the interrogation room? I nearly had to ask him to pop into the bathroom for some privacy with Mr Handy one time..."

"Hey, I'll clean your mouth out with soap if you keep on talking like that," he teased and she giggled into his ear. He had seen Spencer all red-faced and short-breathed when he'd walked out of an interrogation room, after giving an unsub who he'd tackled to the ground and hauled by the collar into the police station a particularly brutal shout-down.

"And you do the same when he starts talking statistics or geographical points, you complete freak!" Garcia crowed delightedly down the line.

"Bullshit, I do," he tutted, grinning despite himself. "Anyway, your always checking out rookie eye-candy when you get the chance, you little minx..."

"Oh yeah, go and change the subject you sneaky demon! Anyway for the good of my poor squeey fangirly heart, can you and my little Spocky boy _please_  refrain from eye-sexing each other all day, before my ovaries explode? How is he anyway?"

"Sick as a dog. Mama stuffed him full of Thanksgiving turkey, wouldn't take 'I'm full,' for an answer."

She burst out laughing.

"Poor baby," she tried to sound sympathetic, but she was too amused to keep it up for too long. "Give him a big smooch from his lovely tech-kitty okay?"

"You know I will, baby-girl," he laughed back. "I'll see you soon."

She made kissy noises down the phone, before he hung up. Sliding his phone away, he walked back inside the old room that had been made up for them. Spencer was curled up on the bed, making tiny whimpering noises, clutching at his stomach. Stripping down to his boxers, he slid in behind him, wrapping his arms around his middle, pressing a hot wet kiss to the back of his neck. He let out a pained moan in response.

"Don't be offended if I refuse to kiss you back, it's just I'm feeling a bit paranoid about vomiting into your mouth...and don't squeeze me too hard, or I'll puke up on the blanket..."

He tried to bite back his amusement, pushing his arms up until they were curled around his chest instead. He remembered his brief talk with his mother as they cleaned the dishes (Spencer had offered to help, but she had fussed him out saying "your a guest, you don't need to clean up sweetie," so he'd just read all the books in the lounge-room six or seven times each instead.)

"He seems a little nervous, but he's just as lovely as you told us," she told him fondly. "Skinny little guy, isn't he? You need to bring him back here more often, so I can feed him properly."

He'd grinned and pecked her on the cheek in reply and she laughed, smacking him with the dish-towel.

His sisters had been caught up with other things and could only pop in for a little while, which had been an effective guilt trip for him to spend the whole day with his mother. Normally he was the one who couldn't spend a lot of time with her, while his sisters stayed the whole day and night. It had been fun and stupid, although her brutal feeding campaign had almost gotten scary at one point.

"Mom didn't believe in Thanksgiving," Spencer said lightly, as he curled up underneath the blanket. "She thought that the government just wanted another excuse to fatten us up, so we could be lazy and compliant and therefor become more easily bent to their will."

There was a slight pause, where the older man pressed his lips more firmly into his neck.

"She was okay with Christmas, as long as it was just one present each and a little meal, because she said anything else would be buying into the world's rampant commercialisation of the holiday."

"Well she's got a point there," he said softly and the younger man let out a faint laugh and then moaned again in discomfort, clutching onto his belly.

"She's interested in meeting you again...I...uh...I've mentioned you in my letters..."

"Oh yeah?"

He shifted a little, muffling a giggle.

"Yeah...arggk! Don't squeeze me, I'm going to be sick."

"Sorry babe," he gave him a quick kiss, giving his belly a comforting rub. "Your just so squeezable..."

"Very funny."

"Don't deny my hilarious nature..."

"I wouldn't dream of it, oh great humorous one."

He chuckled into his neck, both falling sleepily silent again as the room grew dusky and dim around them. The silence stretched on until Derek was nearly dozing off to sleep. Then, in the darkness, the younger man tugged softly at his arm.

"Derek?"

"Yeah baby?"

He squirmed against him slightly.

"I'm...uh...I guess I feel pretty...pretty chillaxed right now..."

"Chillaxed? Did Garcia teach you that?"

He wriggled again, curling his hands around the other man's forearms.

"...yeah...but...but its weird cause...I'm not so used to being chillaxed, y'know...?"

"What are you on about?"

His long fingers started moving nervously against his dark, tattooed skin. Then without warning, he launched head-first into a rant.

"Uh...like...I'm used to...being paranoid about stuffing things up...like...me and Stacy Hayes were cool before the whole dare thing...and we liked each other, cause everyone picked on us and then she got dared to take my virginity and it was amazingly horrible and we never talked again...and the week before...me and Ethan Coiro went to the FBI, I stuffed it up again, cause I was too nervous to go out and drink with him and he was a bit freaked out by how much I was interested in researching serial killers and then he got really badly intoxicated and had to go to the emergency room and then he left and we didn't speak for ages and then with Lila Archer, we sent each other letters for about a week and then I probably scared her off again because she suddenly stopped sending letters and it was a very awkward experience and..."

He took a deep breath before rattling on again.

"...the whole time I was kinda in a semi-romantic-relationship with all those people I felt paranoid that I'd terrify them away even though that's irrational, because Stacy probably felt victimized by her peers like I did and avoided me to avoid reminding herself of the negative experience, and Ethan was struggling with alcoholism which wasn't my fault, and me and Lila just weren't suited to each other, but it's weird that I feel chillaxed with you even though we have fights about how you want me to stop getting hurt or taken hostage at work and other things that aren't so important right now and it's just...I'm used to romantic - things lasting approximately a few weeks max...I mean...me and Stacy, she said she had feelings for me and we held hands two weeks before the...virginity thing...and Ethan and I had the rivalry thing going on for ages before he made a move and then two weeks later, he was off in New Orleans and Lila...that was just a fleeting sexual attraction, not anything of merit...and I'm not very used to something that goes on for months and months and then we see each other's parents, and I'm not scared of it stuffing up, I'm more scared of all this being an entire new experience that I'm not used to and I'm not a hundred per cent sure what to do half of the time and this is scary sometimes cause it's going pretty cool despite the occasional argument cause arguments means sex later which is cool and kinda scary too...and I've had too much to eat and I'm babbling..."

The older man was quiet during the explosion, giving his belly soft little soothing strokes. Half the time, Spencer shied away from discussing his emotions (kinda like Derek's mom sometimes accused him of doing, apparently it was a total man thing) but on the rare time he unloaded, there was no holding back. It was like it all bubbled out of him, like someone had piled too much ice-cream into his thin soda body.

"I think every relationship is pretty damn scary..."

_Cause it felt like you've given access to your soul over to someone to have a good look at and play with and damn Derek that shit's poetic, you have been stealing his books haven't you?_

"You know more about that stuff then me though..."

"Hey, it doesn't matter if I was Mr Hollywood with a quazillion lovely girls and guys lined around the block ready to spend some special time with my rich sexy self, it would still all be as scary as hell..."

"Quazillion isn't a real number."

"Alright, smart-ass."

"Cute butt more like...hey I said don't squeeze me, you horny maniac!"

Derek let out a loud laugh, before muffling it quickly.

"If you make me wake up my mama, I'm blaming it all on you..."

"That doesn't even make sense..."

"We're having a deep and meaningful conversation here, baby c'mon."

He went quiet again, despite the teasing tone in the other man's voice.

And he wanted to say a million things, but they all sounded stupid in his head. Because if Spencer was like the dam breaking when it came to his carefully maintained emotions, Derek was like the tiny cracks along the side, letting out little dribbles of water before he plastered it back up with a fresh layer of cement.

He wanted to say that with Spencer, (as cheesy as a mozzarella pizza as it sounded, but whatever, he was a smooth cheesy bastard,) it was like stepping into a strange, fun bubble in their own strange, fun world of their own, where he didn't know all the bad shit waiting for them out there even existed. He was too caught up in their strange, fun conversations and strange, fun jokes and strange, fun sex to give a flying rat's ass about anything else, and that was such a goddamned relief to him, like being doused with cold water in the middle of a hot, dead desert.

Other people would think they knew what it was like to see what he saw on the field, thought that if they got him to talk incessantly about it, it would clear his mind and now he was being unfair, because they were all trying to help in their own way, they just didn't understand and that wasn't their fault. The rest of the team knew that sometimes you just couldn't talk about it - you couldn't take the rapists and murderers and pedophiles and dead bodies and crying children back home with you to chat about between the sheets of you clean, safe bed with someone you loved, because...that would...dirty things up. Make everything filthy and disgusting.

You had to have a line between those two worlds.

And the people on the team got that. You needed your work and then everything else as far away from you work, as far as you could possibly run, until you could never think about all of that until it was time to again. And Spencer was as far away as he could run (which was weird, yes he knew, because Spencer happened to be at work as well, but work-Reid and not-work Spencer were two separate beings thank you very much, work-Reid had all the answers and was like Dumbledore or something and not-work Spencer was his gorgeous baby boy who he tickled and teased under their blankets until tears of laughter ran down his cheeks) and he was getting all rambly in his head now, maybe he'd had too much to eat as well.

But...

But it was kinda like...his very first girlfriend he'd ever had after...after all the rough shit he went through as a kid.

She cleansed him, even if she didn't understand what she was doing and she was too young to have all that shit put on her. He was raw and ripped up and bleeding, but with her he could almost (never really would) pretend it wasn't there, pretend he was the tough guy that stuff like that didn't happen to. The tough jock guy with the amazing beautiful girl by his side, not the scared confused boy who didn't understand what was happening to him and why everything was hurting so much.

She had to leave in the end, because it wasn't her job to be his emotional crutch and she didn't understand and shouldn't be forced into having to. He knew that.

But Spencer did understand. He went through a whole lot of hard, rough shit, not the same as him, but still hard rough stuff for a kid to go through. He suddenly had to be the grown-up when he was what...ten? Grown-up for his mom, grown-up to prove himself as a twelve year old in a graduating high-school class, as the fourteen year old in college, as the impossibly young kid in the FBI. If he wasn't an adult, if he was a kid for just a second, then he'd feel that pendulum swoop down and the ground be pulled up from under his feet, so he just had to grow up way too fast and Derek knew what it was like, to be an adult way too fucking fast, the world screaming at you to suck it up and deal with it.

Maybe that's why he loved Spencer's apartment so much.

Why Spencer's apartment was the way it was.

Full of old VHS tapes, cassettes, records, dorky t-shirts and that dusty, old smell like he was stepping into a place from twenty years ago.

He guessed he had to be the tough guy and Spencer had to be twenty years older, but with each other they could act like stupid horny goofball kids that they'd never really had the chance to be and no-one around them could stop it, when everywhere else it felt like there was always that pressure, to be the tough Derek Morgan and deal with it, just deal with it goddammit or with Spencer he had to be older, don't be the kid, you can't be the kid or no-one's ever going to take you seriously, everyone's going to laugh at you.

And that was such a relief. A huge, massive lifting pressure taken off his back. To relax...really relax.

He really wanted to say all that right now. Whisper every last word into his ear, but then he'd probably puke up from the cheesiness of it all. Next thing you knew, he'd be rewriting Bruce Springsteen songs, you and me against the world baby.

"Derek?" his soft voice whispered through the inky black darkness. He blinked, eyes itching. He'd gotten really distracted again, hadn't he?

"I'm just...thinking about shit," he said a little gruffly, feeling his muscles coil and uncoil underneath the dark taut stretch of his skin.

"You get this uber-focused look on your face sometimes...did you know that uber means super in German?"

"Me? Focused? Babe, you have no idea how insanely distracted this little head of mine is, my God..."

"Your always deep in thought about something..."

"Kettle calling the plot black or what?"

"My mind's like a strainer, there's always things running through it, only the big important chunks get stuck..."

"Babe, that's  _my_ brain, yours is like a huge goddamned computer, filing every scrap of information away for future reference."

"Actually, when they started making computers and were developing recovery and storage systems, they based it heavily off the human brain and really, the human brain really  _is_  a big computer, so your metaphor sucks and mine's better..."

"One, your not helping your case, bringing that piece of trivia up out of nowhere, two, how does my metaphor suck if it's exactly how the so-called expert I'm having a bit of cuddle with says the brain is exactly like and three, I don't suck, you do and in more ways then one..."

"Don't talk dirty just cause your losing the debate..."

"I'm not losing the debate and you know I can talk dirtier then that..."

"Don't you think it's weird using sexual language in your childhood room with your mother down the hall?"

"It's actually kinda exciting..."

"And also you suck just as much as I do in more ways then one anyway, so you fail at everything, even vulgar sexy talk and why do they call it a blowjob anyway, has anyone ever just sat there and just blown on someone's penis all night, wouldn't you find it strange and definitely un-arousing if all they did was blow hot air onto your genitals, why wouldn't they call it a suck-job or a lick-job and don't get too excited cause if I put anything else in my mouth I'm going to be violently sick and I don't think you want to clean vomit out of your pubic hair and if you did then that's just gross and weird and I'm going to lock you up in the BAU and have Hotch interrogate you and make you cry like a bitch and now you've made me swear, I hope your pleased with yourself you smug bastard."

Derek had to bite into the pillow to stop himself from laughing hard enough to wake up the whole neighborhood and he felt the younger man shake a little with surpressed giggles against him. When he'd calmed himself down, he pushed his mouth back into his shoulder, which was trembling with silent mirth.

"Now you've mentioned blowjobs, vomit and Hotch all in the one sentence, I'm going to have some really, really weird dreams tonight."

Spencer let out a huge snort, choking madly.

"Should I be jealous?" he sniggered before he made a sudden alarming dry-heaving sound, slamming his hands over his mouth. He swallowed painfully at the last minute. The older man rubbed his belly again, hearing it rumble as if warning everyone to make a run for it before it was too late.

"Does my baby need a bucket?"

Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded pitifully. Derek was quick to the bathroom, returning just in time, as the younger man retched messily against the plastic. He rubbed him on the back and tucked his hair away so it wouldn't get drenched.

"I can sense your heart is all a flutter as your dashing knight holds thy fair maiden's hair back..."

"Fair maiden my ass," Spencer mumbled. "This is all your fault anyway, making me laugh until I vomited."

"Hotch is going to be so shattered when he hears you threw up just thinking about him getting a blowjob."

"So you admit you were going to have a dream with Hotch getting a vomity blowjob in it? Your messed up Derek Morgan. Messed up deep inside your very soul."

He smoothed the man's hair back, biting back laughter.

"Poor baby-boy's just sad cause he's sick...this is just like with you and Penelope at the theme park, with all that shit you ate..."

"You have no idea how much pain I'm in right now..."

"Hey, I'm the one whose going to have to clean the vomit out of your hair..."

"But you'll get a sick kick out of it, cause your a total sex-addicted maniac who dreams about your bosses getting pukey fellatio..."

"I'm starting to think your the freak here, always bringing that back up...have you got something you want to tell me, Spencer?"

"Oh go screw yourself or I'll vomit on you."

They continued their debate into the bathroom, where Spencer gargled water and Derek helped him scrub away the sick (there was barely any in his hair at all really.) He got a bit mushy and sweet by the time the older man was tucking him into bed again, keeping the bucket by his side incase of anymore accidents.

"I'm very well looked after, aren't I?" he grinned lazily up at him.

"Of course," he rubbed his hand through his hair, grinning.

"m'm not used to it..." he said, voice quieter like he didn't want him to hear. Then he swallowed a little roughly. Derek kneeled down beside him and wrapped his arms around him, the faint smell of soap and sick still lingering in the air.

"Of course I'll look after my poor pukey angel...I love you..." it always sent a slight frightened jolt through him, hearing the words leave his mouth, knowing it was a crow-bar in the dam-wall, cracking it wider and wider then he was comfortable with. He felt the instant shiver run through the smaller figure's body at his words.

"I...I love you too..." his voice were small and stuttering, as though he was scared of how vulnerable those impossibly powerful words left him too. There was a slight pause between them in the darkness.

"Y'know one day, I want to say that to you all the time without getting nervous," Derek said and Spencer's tensed muscles uncoiled immediately as he let out an easy whoosh of laughter.

"The great Derek Morgan, nervous? Your like...the most confident person I know..."

"Hey, even amazingly sexy chocolate Adonis' like me get nervous occasionally."

"Does nothing for their egos obviously."

He chuckled into his neck, tightening his arms around him.

"Derek?" he asked, after a brief moment's silence. "Before...with all that intelligible ranting I did...what I meant was...when I'm with you, my brain...it doesn't seem so...full? Like...like nothing matters and we can just chill out and relax and I'm not...not used to any of that...y'know?"

"I know," he whispered back. "I kinda...kinda feel the same way..."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he laughed again. "Don't sound so surprised."

Spencer flopped back a little on the pillow.

"Relieved more like! I was ranting on about BS back then, you know for all these words in my head, I don't know what the hell to do with any of them..."

"Yeah me neither. At least you have the guts to say them. I just keep them locked away half the time...don't worry, according to mama it's just a thing that all males suffer from."

There was another brief amused pause.

"And we're in the early days yet, give us some time and we'll be saying the L word so much, we'll need to bring this puke bucket along with us to save everyone else the trouble."

The younger man laughed at the odd mental image the words brought to his mind's eye.

"That'd actually be  _totally_  awesome if we could get people to puke up by being one of those creepy lovey-dovey couples that dress in the same track-suits and talk in synch and if we ever got Garcia to vomit from the cutseyness then we've achieved everything we ever could in life."

"That's our new life mission...make Garcia have a cuteness-overload and throw up."

He got up and climbed into bed beside him, pulling the blankets over them tight.

"Challenge accepted," he could feel Spencer's grin rather then see it. "We're horrible people aren't we?"

"Deplorable, disgusting, despicable," he replied teasingly. "Now go to sleep, vomit-boy."

Spencer made a little giggling noise, before he nuzzled in beside him.

Before he nodded off to sleep, Derek thought about how his mom was going to feel all guilty when she realized Spencer had been sick, but then she always managed to make at least one person vomit at Thanksgiving, even if it was sometimes her. Then he amused himself be imagining her making a whole table of grandkids clean up six or seven plates of turkey and pumpkin pie.

Then he thought about whether he and Spencer would be those two cool uncles, giving them piggybacks and showing them magic tricks. And if by then, they'd be the uncles who were gross and lovey-dovey all the time, like at kid's parties where there'd always be that one couple who managed to get drunk off the lemonade and started hugging and kissing in front of everybody and embarrass all their relatives under the age of nineteen.

And that was a bit of a ridiculously mushy thought, but he didn't give a shit, he was feeling mushy goddammit. And he honestly looked forward to the day when they'd embarrass a whole lot of stuffy relatives by cuddling and smooching at a get-together and he wanted to be that one crazy couple who did dances in the middle of the dance-floor that made everyone else run for cover or give people stupid cards for Christmas, with a horribly knitted sweater to go with it, then demand why they weren't wearing it the next time they saw them, just to mess with their heads. Yeah...he was getting awfully horribly schmaltzy and thank the lord his brain wasn't actually a computer that Garcia could hack into, because she'd be lording this over him for the rest of his life.

He really,  _really_  hoped that all those stupid, ridiculous visions of the future would someday come true. That they'd reach that moment when they could just easily say that three letter sentence without there being that old insecurity going along with it. He really had no idea if they ever would make it far.

But he truly, sincerely hoped they would do it one day.

/

_"...and you, handsome man," her multicoloured shawls and scarves fluttering around her body like gossamer wings in the breeze. "He shows you the strange little cloud-place where he lives, that you think your too much of a tough manly man for and that makes you both feel free, like blowing dandelions into the spring, after they'd lived amongst the weeds for far, far too long."_

_... . . ._


End file.
